As a child I had a lot of unanswered questions about Santa Claus. Why didn’t he make any noise? Why did he always ask my mother to write my cards when he had so many elfin helpers? Was he funded by taxpayers? I didn’t want to discuss it in the playground, but Santa was a deeply suspicious man. He sparked a lifelong gut feeling of conspiracy. 

Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and, y’know, finding weapons of mass destruction are all cases where believable answers to intelligent, logical questions are elusive, and something doesn’t quite add up. I’m starting to wonder if humans require different types of denial at different stages of their lives in order to feel stable.  

Might homeopathy funded by the NHS be part of this? Twelve million pounds over a three year period, costing £151 for each outpatient treated and £3,066 for each inpatient, is a lot of money for an organisation as notoriously stretched as the NHS. We’ve all heard the “it’s no better than a placebo in tests” rant, and when using public money the Government and the NHS have a duty to explain where it is going and why, in terms we can all understand. The NHS homeopathy ‘issues’ webpage announces that an “unusual effect that occurs at the sub-atomic level could explain how water could have a memory” and hints that “quantum entanglement” is involved. Confusingly, it then concludes “there is currently no proof that quantum entanglement is involved in homeopathy”.  The only source the discussion directly refers to is this: “The Lancet, in 2005, looked at over 100 clinical trials and could find no evidence that homeopathy worked any better than a placebo.”

The NHS states on its own website that there is no scientific or clinical evidence to justify the spending on this luxury when medically proven drugs are deemed too expensive. At least parents choose to foot the bill for Santa, but the healthcare system was robbed of £12m between 2005 and 2008 to fund this particular mass illusion.